St. Peter's Church in Hamburg stands on the site of many former cathedrals. It was probably built originally in 1189 and first documented in 1195. In about 1310, the cathedral was rebuilt in a Gothic style and was completed in approximately 1418. The bronze lion-head door handles, the oldest work of art of Hamburg, date from the foundation of the tower in 1342.
A second tower, built in 1516, towered above even the Hamburg Cathedral. Decay caused it to be torn down between 1804 and 1807, after it had been used by Napoleonic soldiers as a horse stable. The building fell victim to the great fire that swept Hamburg in May 1842. Most works of art, such as the lion-head door handles, were saved.
Only seven years after the great fire, the Gothic church was rebuilt by architects Alexis de Chateauneuf and Hermann Felsenfest in its previous location. In 1878, the 132 meter high cathedral tower was finished. The church got through the Second World War relatively intact. In 1962, as a nearby community center was being built, the foundations of a medieval tower, the Bischofsturm ('Bishop's Tower') were discovered.
The best known artworks in St Peter's are the lion-head door handles, located in the left wing of the west portal. However, the cathedral contains many additional works of art.
In the north portion of the cathedral, a Gothic mural from approximately 1460 shows the first bishop Ansgar of Bremen. A column in the choir area contains a statue by Bernt Notke, from around 1480-1483, showing Archbishop Ansgar and the Hamburg Marienkirche, which he founded.
From the 17th century, there are two oil paintings by Gottfried Libalt: Jacob's Dream and Christ's Birth.
The painting Christmas 1813 in St. Peter's is on a column in the south part of the cathedral. It shows the Hamburg citizens who, when they did not provide food to Napoleon's occupying troops, were locked in the church by the soldiers. In the front of the cathedral are neo-Gothic representations of the evangelists. A modern bronze sculpture by Fritz Fleer shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer dressed as a convict with his hands bound.
References:Ehrenbreitstein Fortress was built as the backbone of the regional fortification system, Festung Koblenz, by Prussia between 1817 and 1832 and guarded the middle Rhine region, an area that had been invaded by French troops repeatedly before. The fortress was never attacked.
Early fortifications at the site can be dated back to about 1000 BC. At about AD 1000 Ehrenbert erected a castle. The Archbishops of Trier expanded it with a supporting castle Burg Helferstein and guarded the Holy Tunic in it from 1657 to 1794. Successive Archbishops used the castle's strategic importance to barter between contending powers; thus in 1672 at the outset of war between France and Germany the Archbishop refused requests both from the envoys of Louis XIV and from Brandenburg's Ambassador, Christoph Caspar von Blumenthal, to permit the passage of troops across the Rhine.